out a laugh. “This is ridiculous. You’re ridiculous.”
“Perhaps,” he said, “but if you can think of a better way to bring together the most eligible men in the world, I’m all ears.”
“And what happens if I don’t like any of them?”
“You’re very excited about the sweaters.”
“What if I don’t like any of them?” she reiterated.
“I imagine something will work out.”
“I’m serious,” she said, her blue eyes blazing with emotion. “I’m not marrying a man I don’t like because you have some strange time frame you need to fulfill.”
“Then we will keep looking.”
“No,” she said. “I promise that I will be fair, and I will give this a chance. But if it doesn’t work, give me six months to make my own choice. If I can’t find somebody that is suitable to me, and suitable to you, then I will let you choose.”
“That was not part of the original bargain.”
Six months more of her might just kill him.
“I don’t care,” Sophia said. “This isn’t the Dark Ages, and you can’t make me do what I don’t want to. And you know it.”
“Then you have a bargain. But you will have to put in serious effort. I am not wasting my time and resources.”
“Well I’m not marrying a man just to suit you, Luca. I want to care for the man I marry. I want to like him, if I can’t love him. I want to be able to talk to him. I want him to make me laugh.”
Luca braced himself. Braced himself for her to start talking about passion. About wanting a man who would set her body on fire.
She didn’t.
She had stopped at a man who made her laugh, and had not said she wanted a man who would make her come. He shouldn’t think such thoughts. Shouldn’t want to find out why that didn’t seem to occur to her.
Why attraction didn’t come into her lists of demands to be met.
It made him want to teach her. Didn’t she understand? That physical desire mattered?
And if she didn’t understand...
Some Swedish sheep farmer would be the one to teach her.
Luca gritted his teeth. “But do you need to want him, sorellina?”
He should not have asked the question. He shouldn’t entertain these thoughts, and he certainly shouldn’t give voice to them.
Cursed.
If he weren’t a logical man, he would swear it.
“Want him?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.
“Yes,” he bit out. “Want him. His hands on your body. His mouth on yours. Does it matter to you whether or not you want him inside you?”
He hadn’t realized it, but he’d moved closer to her with each sentence. And now he was so near her he could smell her. That delicate, citrus scent that always rose above the more cloying floral or vanilla perfumes the women around the palace typically favored. A scent he was always assured he could pick out, regardless of who else was around. Always Sophia, rising above the rest.
“I... I...” Her cheeks blushed crimson, and then she stood, her nose colliding with his cheek before she wobbled backward. “I’ve only ever wanted one man like that.” The words seemed to be stuck in her throat. “I never will again. I’m sure. And I refuse to discuss it. Least of all with you.”
And then she turned and ran from the room.
SINCE MAKING A fool out of herself in front of Luca days earlier, Sophia had done her best to avoid him. It wasn’t that difficult. Luca was always busy with affairs of state, and it was actually for the best. The problem was that every time she heard heavy, authoritative footsteps on the marble floors of the palace, her heart caught, and held its position as if it was waiting, waiting to bow down to its king.
She did not want Luca to be the king of her heart. Being King of San Gennaro was quite enough power for one man. But her heart didn’t listen. It beat for Luca, it stopped for Luca, tripped over itself for Luca.
It was starting to feel like she was running an obstacle course every time she made any movement in the palace. One wherein Luca was the obstacle that she was trying desperately to avoid.
But she wanted to see him, too. That was the real conundrum. The fact that she wanted to both avoid him and be with him all the time. Foolish, because he wasn’t even nice to her. He never had been. But still, he captivated her in ways that went beyond sanity.
And today there would be no more avoiding him as he had engaged the services of a new stylist to help her prepare for the ball. The ball wherein she was supposed to choose a husband.
Luca and those dossiers had enraged her. She had picked every man who was completely opposite to him, to spite herself, mostly.
She highly doubted that she would marry any of these men. But one thing she knew for certain was that she would not marry a man who was simply a pale carbon copy of her stepbrother. She would not choose a man who was tall, dark and handsome, who had that kind of authority about him that Luca possessed. Because it would simply be an effort at giving her body a consolation prize. And that was far too tragic, even for her.
She shouldn’t be tragic, she mused as she wandered down the labyrinthine hall toward the salon where she was meeting the new stylist. She had been a commoner, and she had been raised up to become the princess of a country. She had been adopted by a king. A man who had loved her, and had loved her mother. Who had shown them both the kind of life that neither of them had ever dreamed possible.
But Luca. Always Luca.
It was as though her heart was intent on not being happy. As though it wanted to be tragic. In the same way that it had determined that Luca would be its owner.
In a palace, a life of luxury, and with that came a fervent, painful love for the one man she could never have.
And, he didn’t like her.
Star-crossed lovers they were not. Because Luca could hardly stand to share the same space as she did. He thought she was silly, that much was apparent from their exchange yesterday. They were from completely different worlds. The man couldn’t understand why she found it off-putting to be looking through file folders filled with profiles of men she had never met, trying to work out which one of them she could see herself marrying.
Although she supposed it wasn’t entirely different from online dating.
No. She refused to pretend that any of this was reasonable. It wasn’t.
She wondered if she would ever find someone who just wanted her. These men, who had agreed to come to the palace, would never have done so if she wasn’t a princess.
It was the only reason her biological father had ever spoken to her. After he’d seen her mother in the media, marrying King Magnus.
King Magnus had loved her. But...he had only strived to love her because of her mother.
And Luca...
Well, nothing seemed to make Luca like her at all. Not status, or herself.
He was consistent, at least.
She took a deep breath, bracing herself for the sight of him. That was another problem with Luca. Too much exposure to him and her poor heart couldn’t recover between moments. Not enough, and it always flung itself against her breastbone as though it were trying to escape. Trying to go to him. To